I'm new at this. I'll begin homeschooling this coming fall (07) my 6th grade daughter so I'm looking into and researching everything. I'm struggling to find the right curriculum for her. She has always struggled, primarily in problem solving and reasoning. I'm not a math person either. Any suggestions that can help a math-challenged 6th grader and her mom would be greatly appreciated.

Hi. I heard that Math-U-See is really good. But I have never tried it. I get books off of Ebay and workbooks (with an answer key!! LOL) from stores plus use everyday experiences and lots of computer games. Do you remember School House Rock? Well, they have an awesome computer game that teaches math. Ds is also math challenged, so am I for that matter; the calculator is my best friend LOL Anyway, the key is to make math fun and interesting. And, one thing I tell my ds is, it doesn't matter how he gets the answer, just as long as it is right.

Word problems are hard for my ds too. It helps if we write them out as we are figuring them up. And one of our favorite tools to use is a big dry erase board.

I will second Math-U-See. I choose that because I am math challenged and couldn't imagine just using a manual. MUS has all the lessons done on dvd or video with the writer of the programme Steve Demme as the teacher. http://www.mathusee.com/_________________Jo from Australia

I'm new at this. I'll begin homeschooling this coming fall (07) my 6th grade daughter so I'm looking into and researching everything. I'm struggling to find the right curriculum for her. She has always struggled, primarily in problem solving and reasoning. I'm not a math person either. Any suggestions that can help a math-challenged 6th grader and her mom would be greatly appreciated.

I've tried soooooo many different math curriculums. Our daughter has always been really good at math, but she goes through it fast and wants more of a challenge which is hard to get from SOS, Life Pacs, AO, or any other curriculum that I have tried. However what I have found that does work for both our daughter and our son is Time4learning. Time4learning is really cool, because once they finish the subjects in the grade you start them in, they are automaticly moved up to the next grade. Time4learning is an online based curriculum, that the kids do on-line. All grading is done for you on-line, and you can print out worksheets too. The curriculum is fun, and the kids enjoy it. Our son finished almost all of his 4th grade subjects in March, and started on his 5th grade subjects. He is now about 1/3 through 5th grade. We had an early Summer break and traveled the Country for 6 weeks, so school is in session again now, then again, everything is a learning experience so in a way, homeschooled kids are always in school, LOL.

Anyway, we are in our second year of Time4learning, and we all love it! I highly recomend it to all homeschool moms.

You can also sign up for a 14 day free trial to see if it works for you. Hope this helps, and good luck!_________________Carmella
Mom to 8 great kids and 5 granddaughters
http://www.thedunkinacademy.com

I will third Math U See. We started it a few months ago now and the change in math attitude is amazing! We started with one level below where he was currently working to give him better confidence and he's zipping right through. It's summer and he's asking to do math!

You may want to check out the Critical Thinking Co. for logic books. They have a ton of great resources there._________________"The greatest sign of success for a teacher... is to be able to say, "The children are now working as if I did not exist."
- M. MontessoriProud non-member of the HSLDA

Of course there is some debate about using examples from shopping, fasion, cell phone minutes, etc. to stereotypically reach out to girls, but if the regular math books use sports examples that stereotypically reach out to boys, then maybe this is a balance for those girls who don't like math as it is traditionally taught, but who might get excited about examples that they are interested in.